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<blogEntries>
<blogEntry id="4694">
	<title><![CDATA[What I learned; the IP v. Aiki wars.]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Recently there has been lot's of talk about the word "Aiki" and what that word means, and what the founder of Aikido meant when he used the word. As usual I had my own very strong opinion on the issue, and set forth to be proven wrong or get my point across- I'm this way by nature. 

Doing this forced me to examine and reexamine the history of our system (Aikido). Through this I found out that I wasn't as informed as I thought I was. I spent lot's of time on Aikido journal, sifting through interviews and translations. Trying to get a more complete view of the situation. Turns out I was a little wrong, and a little right, but none of that really mattered. In the end I have a better understanding, for myself, of what Aikido is historically, and that's the best thing that could have happened.

Thanks to all those who said I was wrong, you made me work, and through that I think I've become a little better and stronger. The old saying "you don't have to take my word for it" should be at the very core of our practice. Only through taking in many different viewpoints can you better find your own. Blindly following any one persons ideas, no matter how great they are, is always inferior to finding your own path.]]></body>
	<date>01-05-2013</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="4662">
	<title><![CDATA[My stance on IP/IS/IT.]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[My current stance on IP/IT/IS, November 2012.

A few of my friends recently read some of the discussions here on Aikiweb where I was expressing my feelings about IP/IT/IS, and they had some questions for me, that made me realize, that without some background information about me and my training, some of my arguments might not make sense. So I've decided to write a quick explanation about where I stand on the IP/IT/IS discussion, and why my feelings are the way they are.

I started my Aikido career with and received my Shodan from Patrick Cassidy, Aikikai 6th dan, awarded his 4th dan by Morihiro Saito Sensei, trained in Iwama Japan for around 7 years. My early Aikido training was an interesting mix of solid Iwama kihon, Aikikai style ki-no-nagare and strong spiritual ideals (if you know Patrick you're very aware of what I mean).

From this training I began to understand the idea that “Aiki” was the ability to understand, lead, and blend with your attackers mind. This understanding of the mind, leads to the ability to work with the attackers body. This idea, took a strong hold, and to this day I find it to be a unique, and practical ability inherent to Aikido training.

After receiving my black belt, I began to feel like I didn't really understand how one could practically “use” Aikido. How one could martially defend themselves with the techniques found in Aikido. So I figured the best way to find out would be to start competing in Sport martial arts. Which I did, I competed in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Submission wrestling, Mixed Martial arts, and a full contact stick fight. Through this experience competing, I found a simple and clear way understand and “use” the techniques of Aikido, Aikido's waza.

While doing these competitions, I also was training full time with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt and internal Martial arts expert Tim Cartmell. Tim is a Gao style Ba Gua Zhang lineage holder, author and translator of many internal marital arts books. He lived in Taiwan for 12 years, studying Chinese internal Martial arts, and Chinese literature. I moved to train with Tim, and stayed with him, competing and training full time for two years. In this time I formed my idea's about Chinese internal martial arts and sports/athletic training. 

After the time I spent with Tim, and competing, I moved back to the central valley, and co-founded, Central Valley Aikido. Later I became Dojo Cho and chief Aikido instructor at Aikido of Fresno. 

My arguments about Internal Power are not made from the perspective of someone who has never been a part of internal martial arts training. The ideas and concepts presented by the “IP” crowd are not new or foreign to me, but I do not believe that what they are describing is unique phenomenon, limited to a very small group, or secret in any way. I believe that the Chinese had a very unique way of describing (coming mostly from the writings of Sun Lu-t'ang) a very normal phenomenon that is part of most athletic endeavor. Further the assumption that “Aiki” is closely related to “IP” sounds incorrect to me. Chinese internal martial arts describe many things, so it's hard to say that part of this is not “Aiki” but the “jin” or power aspect of Chinese internal, what I believe most of the “IP” crowd is talking about, has little to nothing to do with what I learned as “Aiki”.

The further assumption that Aikido cannot work without “IP” is absolutely incorrect in my opinion as well. I spent lot's of hard hours sparring to discover this, Aikido waza works perfectly fine without any special additions. The only thing missing, is correct context and what I believe Kenji Tomiki did a pretty great job with, a sparring practice. This is not necessary for the system itself, but is necessary for the practitioners of the system to learn how to use it.

My resistance to seminars. 
Frankly I hate seminars. As uchi deshi I was forced to go to a great number of them. I always found them overly expensive, annoying to travel to, and you get less then ideal training for your efforts. When the “IHTBF” argument came around, I ignored it because without any reason to believe “IP” is anything different then what I experienced in two years of training full time with a Chinese internal martial arts expert, why would I go to something that simply annoys me?

Recently I've realized that there is no way around this, and I'm going to have to feel one of these IP fellows to see if in fact I'm familiar with what they are doing or not. More of this to follow in 2013...]]></body>
	<date>11-11-2012</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3398">
	<title><![CDATA[Aikido as Budo]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Understanding Aikido as Budo.

When one begins to talk about practicality, application and usefulness in the world of the martial arts we enter onto a slippery slope. People start talking about "street fights" and "what REALLY happens in a fight". We Begin to theorize about reality, instead of living and training in it.

Training in the martial arts is not fighting. No matter how much we want it to be, no matter how much we pretend or don't pretend it simply isn't fighting. You can not do or experience the things you would in a life or death struggle in a Dojo. It's not possible, for many reasons.

First, a Dojo is a controlled atmosphere. No one is going to have buddies waiting outside the door, to help them beat up another student. A car isn't going to drive through the school. People are not going to begin shooting at you in the middle of class. Most everyone knows each other and are working together, not plotting to harm one another.

Second, the Dojo has a teacher/coach who sets up the scenarios, decides when things have gone on to long, or are not appropriate. The teacher dictates what is safe, good practice and the direction he wants the school to go in. If it were a sporting event he'd be the referee, there are no referee's in life or death struggles.

Third, there is a lack of intent to truly do harm to one another. Not that there aren't occasional Dojo Scrabbles. Maybe a few people don't really like each other, but there is no real intent to do life threatening harm. The students are there to work together, even in very competitive sport martial arts Dojo's.

In a Dojo, we can only study and train for fights. We don't experience them. Experience is the key to understanding something. So because of this lack of fight experience, Martial arts are an imperfect system for learning to fight. A perfect system for learning to fight would be regular class sessions followed by going out and attacking or making unknown people attack you.

This kind of fight training is dangerous at best, and most likely insane. It would be a huge disruption to the community to have a school like this enter your aria. It's students would be known as thugs and murderers. Its teacher would likely be jailed. Students would regularly die or take serious injury. It would not be an enjoyable fulfilling life practice because it requires that you regularly cause harm to innocent people. It wouldn't be practical or fun.

Experiencing a fight is the only way to experience a fight. It is not practical to include life or death fights in your training. This renders most traditional martial arts imperfect systems for teaching fighting. In sport martial arts there is an attempt to remedy this imperfection by making their own clear definition of what a fight is. This allows them to experience "fighting" regularly and safely. Sport martial arts gear their training toward their definition of what a fight is.

A sport fight will be some sort of event with a referee in a controlled atmosphere. For example in western boxing, a "fight" is when two people of approximately the same size and skill level meet at an exact place and time, after a period of preparation. Agreeing to rules set forth by an organization and enforced by a referee. The competitors punch each other until one is unable to fight, or they reach an agreed on time period. A Brazilian Jiujitsu "fight" is similar except instead of punching they wrestle until one of the two is unable to fight or they reach the time limit.

Because there are many different elements to fighting: kicking, punching, throwing, wrestling, submissions, etc, people always wondered what elements of fighting were better. Could kickers beat punchers? Could Wrestling beat striking. These types of questions always lead to a clear understanding that sport fighting was also imperfect. You couldn't see all the variables in one match. This meant sport fights were interesting, but clearly still not a perfect school of fighting.

Currently there is a trend towards what is being called: Ultimate fighting, Cage fighting, No Holds Barred (NHB), or Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). This sport martial art allows competitors to use all of the major methods of unarmed combat. Competitors are no longer limited to just punching, or punching and kicking, or wrestling, or submissions. By allowing competitors to "fight" with grappling, projecting, and striking all in one event "Ultimate fighting" has managed to come closer to a "real fight" then its sport predecessors.

There is however still an inherent flaw with "Ultimate fighting", it is a sport. Being a sport means that it's definition of what a fight is, is still very limited. A wise man once said "If you want to win a fight, you'll want weapons, numbers and surprise on your side", good advice. However in "Ultimate fighting" using weapons, surprise and multiple attackers is against the rules. Clearly the man who made the first statement was talking about a kind of fighting that doesn't match the definition of "Ultimate fighting". 

"Ultimate fighting" has rules, just like any other sport fight. The rules are good. They keep people relatively safe. They establish it's competitors as athletes, and sportsmen, not thugs and murderers. The rules make "Ultimate fighting" a practical, noble endeavor. However these rules also limit the system. Turning a blind eye to things like weapons, surprise, multiple attackers, and environment. This blind eye is it's unavoidable imperfection.

The military is a true method of learning to fight. Military combatants learn technique, and also regularly go out and fight-without definition. The military will give you knowledge and experience. Making it a complete method of learning to fight. However it's not a school, but rather a life style.

Being in the military means having to kill, and taking the very real risk of being killed yourself. It is not something that can be done part time, it is a full time career. You will be fighting at the discretion of someone else, for their values which may not match your own. Military life carries a heavy emotional and physical tax.

Other occupations like: Law enforcement, security/body guard, etc. provide "fight" experience as well. The fact is most of those who study martial arts don't really want to devote the whole of their lives to physical combat. We want to live normal, interesting lives. We have a curiosity, or need to know about fighting. We are students of fighting, but we don't want to constantly face life threatening danger.

Because of the inherent flaws in our systems, all of our schools are lacking. They lack the ability to impart the complete experience of physical conflict. Martial arts systems can't make us a complete physical fighter. They do however teach us about struggle and conflict. This training and understanding is most useful to us in our most important endeavor: life

We are all participants in life. The martial arts is a way to learn about struggle and conflict (fighting). Struggle and conflict are inseparable parts of life. We struggle to get up in the morning. We struggle to get to where we want in life. We struggle to become better people.

The martial arts are a way of challenging ourselves to meet and enjoy the struggle. The martial arts provide a means of learning and training for hardships. Hardships are a regular part of life. The martial arts prepare us for the ultimate experience; life.

We must strive to make our system more challenging. We must seek to get closer to what we would experience in a fight. We don't do this so we can simply win a "street fight". Or brag that we study a "complete" martial arts system. We must make our training as difficult as we can safely and ethically afford. We should do this not in an attempt to become the greatest fighter of all time. Not to delude ourselves with a fantasy. We do it in order to become a better person. We study physical conflict in order to understand real struggle, life's struggle. This is Budo.

What we train when we study any martial art is Budo. We train not to be physically unstoppable, but spiritually undefeatable; Budo.]]></body>
	<date>12-19-2008</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3392">
	<title><![CDATA[Martial Arts and Spirituality.]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Martial arts and spirituality.

Martial arts and spirituality. What does that even mean? This is a question almost all of us ask. But few of us ever get any real answers. Some say it's mixing religions such as Christianity or Islam with martial arts. Some think it's dressing up in flowing clothes, spouting koans, and seeming esoteric. Some say it's simply, "a bunch of crap".
However I believe It isn't any of these things.

To understand the relationship between Martial arts and spiritually, you must first understand what each of them are on their own. Most of us pretty much understand, or at least have a clear concept of what the martial arts are. I'll define it here as the  study of physical conflict. But there are lots of reasonable definitions. Most of us have spent enough time with the martial arts, that we have a pretty clear definition, at least for ourselves. It's spirituality that many of us have a hard time with.

To many, spirituality is simply going to church and reading the bible. While these things are spiritual things, they are part of a religion, and not the spirituality itself. A religion is a school of spirituality. The main goal of these schools is to put people in touch with their spirituality. The practices of a religion (prayer, bible reading, church services, worship etc.) are designed to put you in touch with your spirituality, but they are not the spirituality itself. By adding the practices of your religion to your martial arts, you are not working with spirituality, you are simply adding more practices. Which most martial arts systems already have more then enough of. Religion's are to spirituality as Martial arts are to fighting. They are schools that point to a thing, but not the thing itself. Mixing the practices of a religion into your martial arts doesn't train your spirit.

The trappings of spirituality are not the spirit. While different physical objects can help evoke your spirit, they are not the spirit itself. Wearing a Zen masters robes certainly does not make you a Zen master. Reciting words and incantations that you don't understand does not make you a spiritual person. Seeming aloof and exotic to other people doesn't do a thing for your spirituality either. It starts with you.Your spirit is at the very core of what you are. So how could you find it in things outside of yourself?

Because of our tendency to confuse spirit with practices and trappings, many of us come to the conclusion that spirituality is just a bunch of nonsense and doesn't exist at all. However if you look to the normal instead of the extreme we can readily see examples of spirit in our daily lives. Some  common indications of spirit are: "the spirit of giving", "the Christmas spirit", "Fighting spirit", etc. We all understand these examples, and accept them with little doubt as to their existence. The reason is because we've all experienced them or seen them in our lives. We don't think of these things as being different or special, they are just part of life.

Spirit is complete manifestation of true self. Let's look at it in terms of "the spirit of giving". Most all of us have been over taken by this at one time or another, and are quite familiar with it. We know that it is a feeling of joyful giving. It can seem almost addictive. You just start giving things, maybe even expensive or important things, to people you care about. Every part of you wants to give. Once you surrender to your spirit, everything seems to come together for you. The same can be said of "fighting spirit". When someone has a strong fighting spirit, they except the fact that they are in the midst of struggle. In fact they happily engage, excepting what is happening, exhibiting a kind of joy. They do this even in the face of agony or defeat.

Your spirit shows itself when you stop putting things off. Without fearing what is about to happen, simply being in the moment, naturally. We've all had the experience of getting up in front of a crowd to give a talk or present something. Maybe we allowed ourselves to be intimidated by the crowd, kind of shinking inside of ourselves. Not being the best showman we could be. We didn't have the "showman's spirit". We didn't allow ourselves to do as well as we could. We just didn't have enough "spirit" to make the best presentation we could. Spiritual practice's are those that teach you to except what is happening and who you are in order to let yourself, your spirit, shine through. When you are coming from a spiritual place you are acting without fear, worry, doubt, or any kind of dependence on what will happen next, you are simply being you, right now.

Understanding spirit, and spirituality in this way; its connection to the martial arts is undeniable. Martial situations are ones that require strong spirit. If your spirit isn't strong you'll never get through extreme difficulty's. If your spirit isn't strong it's impossible to come through tragedy and not be a victim. And for these very reasons Martial practices make wonderful training grounds for the spirit. Lending the martial arts to being a wonderful spiritual practice. Most religions and non-martial spiritual schools have to add practices in order to train the spirit. Challenges and difficulties must be faced in order to strengthen your spirit. Non-martial spiritual traditions add things like: abstinence, fasting, tithing, worship, routine, strict moralities etc. in order to challenge their practitioners. Martial practices however have a built in set of challenges: fighting, physical fatigue, and habitual practice are the necessities of a martial method. Practices like these make simple sense in the martial arts. You never have to ask, "why do I need to be in good physical shape" ," "Why do I actually need to test my skills against someone", or "why do I need to train so much". The reasons are clear, if you want to be good, you'll have to do these things. You must use your spirit to get through these rigors, this trains the spirit. It's hard to hide behind lies, and clever excuses, if you're not training hard, it's clear that your spirit is not in the practice.

The great thing about spiritual training is that it will naturally start to spill over into the rest of your life. When you honestly take on training in the martial arts, you take on a spiritual practice that makes you a stronger person. Dealing with things directly and honestly starts to be much less challenging. When you willingly participate in physical conflict, dealing with the grumpy bus boy suddenly isn't a big deal. When you force yourself to joyfully except vigorous exercise, doing yard work is no problem. A strong spirit is useful in all facets of life, and will do far more for you then make you a good fighter.

You must pay attention to this. You must actually make Spirituality a practice. If you fight simply because you're mad, or "want too" you're not training your spirit. You are simply giving in to an indulgence. If you show up at your Dojo and simply go through the motions, you're not training your spirit. If you get excited and feed your ego every time you pin someone, or give them a big throw, complaining every time you are thrown, you're not training your spirit. You must stay ever mindful, taking care in all of your training. This will make your practice something phenomenal. Something that will strengthen your spirit, and increase your martial ability. Eventually there will be no more "spirit of giving,", or "fighting spirit", because everything you do will involve spirit. Giving you something we could all use a little more of in our lives, Joy.]]></body>
	<date>12-03-2008</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3351">
	<title><![CDATA[Everyone wants a trick.]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Everyone thinks there’s a trick.

Many people engage in martial arts training to learn a “trick”. They think they are going to learn a cool wrist lock, or some other kind of almost magical unknown technique, that will flip everyone for real. After a few years most of us learn that this really magical unknown technique, doesn’t exist. We realize that the body is a machine and it’s limitations can be readily understood by all.

So we give up on that idea, and we move on to the next bit of magic tricks. We start looking for either, a mental trick, a spiritual trick or an energy trick. We want to find a way that our minds, spirits or ki/chi can do the magic. While many spend forever looking for these tricks, most of us, again, settle down and realize that these are not all we fantasize them to be.

Slowly most of us learn that these things all come with dedication, perseverance, honest sweat and hard work. It only looks like a trick to the uninformed, who don’t understand that it took time to learn these things, and that if it could be given over night, it truly would be just a “trick”.

However most of us continue to fool our selves. We think that training in the martial arts is going to some how make us an amazing fighter. We might shrug it off, and say that we train in the peaceful way, and fighting is something we actually want to avoid. However it’s impossible to deny your interest in physical conflict. Because the study of physical conflict IS the study of the martial arts. If it’s not physical conflict you’re interested in why not study zen, or dance. There is something about physical conflict that draws you to the martial arts, otherwise you wouldn’t be a martial artist.

Martial arts don’t teach you how to fight. I don’t mean that in a psycho babble, pseudo philosophical, superior egotistical way. I mean it very directly. You will never become a fighter by studying the martial arts. If you think you will be, you are again deluding yourself with a trick fantasy.

If you believe you will learn to fight by studying the martial arts, you are again looking for a magic pill, a “trick”. The reason is simple, martial arts systems are not fights. Only fighting can make you better at fighting. If you want to have a direct experience with fighting, you cannot cheat by listening to people talk, and you cannot cheat by thinking about it a lot. Those things would be tricks. You can only learn to fight, by fighting.

Sure you can study a sport martial art. Sport martial arts will teach you lots of good things. How to deal with resistance, how to dig deep into your spirit to drive on, how to face your fears, take punishment, etc. etc. But sport is also not a “fights”. I mean to say, they are fights in the since that it’s you pitting yourself against another person. So they are fights in the same since that debate, or track and field events are fights. But they are not life or death, someone is going to leave today, and the other is not, fights. Nor are they, “give me your money, or I’ll stick this piece of metal in your belly” fights. They are not even “Your girlfriend is pretty, I think my boys and I are going to take her for the night” fights. They are sport. Even the seemingly vicious sports, are just sport.

Martial arts are martial arts, sports are sports and fights are fights. Sounds pretty simple, yet we trick ourselves with these things everyday. We think because we train in some battle battlefield techniques, we know how to fight. Or because we kick and wrestle on a mat we know how to fight. We don’t.

This is not to say that we can’t learn things from this kind of training. The things we train do relate to fights, and may help us in a fight. But no amount of training will give you fight experience.

So what are martial arts: the study of conflict. That’s it, simply the study of conflict. Studying history doesn’t make you a cowboy, or a knight, or a pirate. You might know lots about them. You might make cloths like theirs, own historical weapons of theirs, have horses or ships. You might even practice shooting, or get together with your buddies and actually joust, or practice swashbuckling. But you are still just one who studies. You’ve never been on the run in old Mexico. You’ve never fought a religious war. You’ve never raped and pillaged. You just study. Only getting in fights makes you a fighter. Training in martial arts makes you a martial artist.

-Christopher Hein]]></body>
	<date>09-24-2008</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="2972">
	<title><![CDATA[Differences between Aiki and Jiu.]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[What is Aiki, how is it different then Jiu?

It’s pretty common knowledge that Aikido is the study of Aiki; but what is Aiki? Do people other then martial artists use Aiki? Is Aiki magic? Is Aiki science? Does Aiki exist? These are all very important questions to which many never get fulfilling answers.

What is Aiki. Well first, lets look at the root words that make up Aiki. The first is Ai (çá). Ai is the Japanese word for Accord, or meeting. It basically means to be in sync or come together with. The second word is Ki (ăC). Ki is the Japanese word for energy. Many people attach some mystical meaning to ki, but that will take us away from where we are trying to get to in this article. If for now you simply understand Ki as energy, the same as we use the word here in the west it will serve us well. By looking at these two words in conjunction we will get a very direct translation for aiki, of: in sync with energy. 

For myself, I look at Aiki like music. Several musicians playing music together must use Aiki. The energy is the sound they are producing, and the accord is them working together to produce a cohesive piece of music. Music is a very good example to use because there is no physical interaction, it is simply and directly related to the harmony of the energy produced (the sound). 

In my opinion an abstract example like this, is the clearest example of what Aiki is. Not to say that you cannot have Aiki when there is physical connection, but with physical interaction many other things may be things happening other then Aiki. This can cloud our understanding of what we will come to understand as Aiki.

Do people other then martial artists use Aiki? Well as we have seen in our example above, yes, certainly musicians use Aiki, but others do as well. Another clear example of someone using Aiki would be an American Football running back. The running back is the guy often given the ball behind the line of scrimmage (where all the other players are fighting to get to the ball) his job is to run past all the other players on the line and try and make forward progress. Oftentimes you will see one or several players from the other team brake the line and attempt to tackle the running back. However a good running back, with just his intent and a slight move of his hips is often able to make the other players miss him, and even fall in the process. 

This is a "real life" example of what we in Aikido would call a "no touch" throw. The other players are trying so hard to get him, he convinces them that he will be in the place they suspect. Once he knows they are fully committed, he changes his direction and with out even touching them they will lose their balance and fall to the ground. This is not unique to Football, it can also be seen in soccer, basketball, and many other contact sports. 

In our two examples above Aiki is being used in different ways. One is using Aiki to make a perfect harmony with the other musicians, and the other is using Aiki for a more personally beneficial end, however both are allowing their actions to come in sync with another energy; Aiki.

So how does one make Aiki? Active Aiki can only be achieved by allowing your mind to open to what is going on around you. Aiki is not a solitary practice, you must have something to harmonize with. What you harmonize with can be conscious or not, either way you can still achieve Aiki with it. However you can only "trick" an aware entity. For example if you are catching a ball, you will likely use Aiki. You will see the ball coming, and match the motion of the ball, so it lands softly in your hand. The ball is not conscious, however you still achieved an Aiki interaction with it. But the ball cannot be tricked, if you don't make contact with the ball it will follow it's natural path no matter what you do. Conscious entities can be tricked However. A bull for example, during a bull fight; the Matador can trick the bull into thinking things that are not true, and make the bull follow a new path. This is also Aiki, but used differently. 

The Aikidoka must allow his mind to open to his surroundings, and seek to blend with what is going on around him. He must seek to be in harmony with his environment by detecting not only the physical motion of random objects, but also the intentions of his fellow man and beast. Truly beautiful Aiki (for us who study Aikido) starts with understanding your partner’s intentions, and what motivates his action. After this is understood, you must choose actions, yourself that coincide with his desires, and blend with him to make a perfect Aiki interaction.

What is the difference between Aiki and Jiu? Depending on who you ask (particularly in relation to the styles that accompany the principals) you will get a multitude of different answers. These will range from the very mislead "Aikido is gentle and Jiu-jitsu is hard", to the overly simplistic, "they are basically the same thing". 

Personally I've always hated the translation of Jiu (éŮ) as soft. Soft is what I would call a cotton ball. Jiu is like an inflated beach ball. I wouldn’t call a beach ball soft per say, but it’s not hard either. It has give, but also structure; it’s springy. It’s not without resistance. A bow (as in bow and arrow) is another good example of Jiu, it has flexibility, but it’s certainly not soft, a good bow takes plenty of force to pull. While Jiu is yielding, it is also stable and strong, like the branches of a healthy tree. 

Many people confuse the concept of Jiu and Aiki. While in physical interaction it’s hard to tell the difference, they are still distinct principals, unique to themselves. Personally I would say the hard and fast rules are: Aiki is best used when you are not touching, and Jiu is best used with physical contact. In fact Jiu must have physical contact in order to be used. If you set a black inflatable ball next to a bowling ball, so they look identical, you would never know which one has Jiu (the inflatable ball) unless a physical force acted on it. Jiu is more receptive, and Aiki is more proactive.

While it’s not impossible to use Aiki while in physical contact it’s less clearly seen, and harder to understand. If you watch film of Judo great Kyuzo Mifune, you can see he often use’s Aiki to throw instead of Jiu. He will strike a rhythm with his partner, by beginning to prance a bit, and the second his partner falls into his rhythm, Mifune will throw him. This is a great example of using Aiki in physical interaction, but hard for someone with little experience to see. 

Aiki and Jiu are both present in Aikido as it is practiced today. While we call our art Aikido, it is not completely devoted to only the study of Aiki, but Jiu also. The deeper and more clearly we can understand the differences the more profound we can make our practice.]]></body>
	<date>05-07-2007</date>
</blogEntry>


</blogEntries>